Still not completely recovered from the mind-bending experience that was Glastonbury, I took my boys to the Cornbury festival in Oxfordshire yesterday, just for the day. This was because Paul Simon was playing his only South of England gig at this obscure little garden party near a quaint little town called Charlbury. I say garden party, because it was a bit like one, with a tea and cake tent full of local ladies in aprons who’d spent weeks preparing for it. Then the Charlbury brownies also had a little concession, and most of the visitors pitched their tents and put up their collapsible chairs inches from the stage and expected them to stay there. Which they did. It was all most endearing, clean and slightly olde worlde with a sound system that was hardly powerful enough, but just about cut it.

 

I bought a Vietnam cap; looks pretty cool I think, tilted to the side at a rakish angle with a single red star on it. Better not wear that one next time I go to the USA. You know what they think of the Cong.

 

And of course it rained for most of the day and into the evening, but it was all worth it to see Paul Simon, every inch New Yorker, with his hat, his hand gestures and his still-impeccable musicianship. Jacob and I were enchanted, singing along whenever we could. Magic.

 

That’s a lot of oldies I’ve seen in the last few months. Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springstein, Sinead O’Connor, Toots and the Maytals, Jimmy Cliff, Paul Simon ... Of course they all have the virtue of experience and decades of practice. But what Scouting for Girls have is still that fresh-faced wonder that a hundred thousand people seem to know the lyrics of their songs by heart. Nothing better than watching a performer loving it up there on the stage. Not because they’re smug or vain, but because of the communication between performer and spectator. That is the magic of live performance.

 

And talking of live performance, I took party in Roddy Lumsden’s ‘Fifty American States’ on Thursday, one out of two evenings where Roddy had commissioned fifty poets each to write a poem about an American State. I got Vermont. It was a grand evening at The Scooterworks in Waterloo - a tiny little ramshackled cafe with an antiquated cappuccino machine and proper cans of lube next to the Southern Comfort at the bar. It was a squash, but worth every moment. Someone should give Roddy Lumsden a knighthood or something for his services to poetry. My reward for my poem was some Reese’s peanut butter cups and a bar of Hersheys, but the main reward was just being part of something as big and enjoyable as that. Loved it.

 

Off to do my prizewinner’s reading at Ledbury on Thursday, and will also be taking part in an ‘extreme poetry workshop’ that involves the ‘Long night of the Sole’, a night time tramp across the countryside with writing stops on the way. So tune in for the next exciting episode next Sunday.

 

Meanwhile - truly knackered - got home at 2am this morning and looking forward to my bed ...